*THE
WORKER*
BRISBANE, JULY 27, 1895.
Michael
Davitt, M.P.
Interview
by a “Worker” representative
His
Views on Labour and Social-Economic Questions.
A representative of the WORKER was the first Queensland
newspaper man to secure the honour of seeking an interview with the
illustrious and far fained Michael Davitt on his arrival at the
Imperial Hotel, Brisbane, last Thursday afternoon. The request was
readily granted, but as our paper had gone to press it was agreed to
postpone the chat until Saturday morning.
There
are thousands of WORKER readers who would like, but will not have,
the opportunity to hear this famous Irish land and Social reformer.
The next best thing to hearing him is to have a chance of reading his
views on topics of special interest to the wage-earning community,
which we think will be found interesting enough. Himself a member of
the Knights of labour, his editorial connection with the London
Labour World, his
intimate acquaintance with the leading lights in the Labour and
Social Reform movements in the old country, and his close study of
all subjects associated there with enables him to speak at least with
some knowledge and authority.
On Saturday morning, punctually to the appointed time,
our representative found himself seated in the room with the author
of “Leaves from a Prison Diary.” Davitt's nine years'
incarceration and the brutal treatment to which he was subjected have
evidently made their impress upon his former robust self. He is a
tall, dark man, slightly built, with heavy black moustache and neatly
trimmed beard, and a grave, determined expression; but though the
gaze from underneath his deep eye-brows
seems to penetrate one, he is evidently a man of kindly
disposition, and absolutely free from what is commonly known amongst
Australians as “side.” By his right hangs an empty sleeve to tell
the tale of a painful incident in his boyhood days. He was very
desirous of giving us all possible information his limited time would
permit, and having seen the WORKER long before leaving London, he
knew our politics and the kind of material we were after.
During a preliminary conversation the WORKER man took
the opportunity of informing Mr. Davitt that the young chap who
wanted to know from him at his Centennial Hall meeting the difference
between coercion at home and coercion out here was Julian Stuart, one
of the 1891 bush strike conspiracy prisoners, and of telling him that
he had carried prison chains through parts of Queensland as a penalty
for honest advocacy of the Unionist cause.
“Well,” said Mr. Davitt, “I do not want to
interfere in any way with local politics, but I hope I have not hurt
the young fellow's feelings.”
Putting his watch down between us, he said, “Well, now
to business. I can give you just one hour's talk.”
The Condition of the British
Workman.
“Do you think, Mr. Davitt, the condition of the
working classes in Great Britain is much better now than it was fifty
years ago?” was our first query.
“Yes,”
said Mr. Davitt, “I do. I began industrial life as a factory lad in
Lancashire about forty years ago, and the wages of factory hands then
were very low. They are now, I should think, fully 30 per cent
higher, while money now purchases far more of the necessaries of
life. Unquestionably there has been a general improvement of the
conditions of the workers in England. Population has, of course,
enormously increased since that time, and the struggle for existence
has become harder and harder every day where people are so numerous
as to make it extremely difficult for them to obtain remunerative
employment.”
What Unionism and Strikes
Have Done.
“Manley industries that are carried on mainly through
the use of coal suffered temporary disadvantages through the last big
miners' strike; but I think I am right in saying that the workers who
had their employment suspended during the strike stood loyal to the
miners and heartily sympathised with their efforts to establish the
great principle of a living wage. Then the manly stand of the miners
themselves, the wonderful self sacrifice which they displayed, the
heroism of their wives in encouraging the men to hold out for better
terms, exercised a great moral effect upon the general mass of
toilers in Great Britain.”
The Strike as a Weapon.
“I am bound to admit that, with the exception of this
particular strike, which, if you will allow me to say, was not a
strike – it was a lock-out – almost all the strikes that have
been organised in Great Britain and Ireland since the great London
dock strike have failed in achieving their object. This failure is
due to two causes – first, the want of sufficient funds on the part
of the workers; and, secondly, what I may call the federation of
capitalist interests in Great Britain. The result of these failures
to obtain the demands made by the workers has been to create a
feeling amongst labour organisations that the weapon of strike
practically is blunted, and that some other means must be devised
through which the workers can obtain a fairer reward for their daily
labour. I do not myself regret that the strike will be temporarily
put on one side, because I think it will result in inducing the
workers to look more to radical legislation on the land and other
social questions as a surer method of finally obtaining full justice
for the wealth producers of society.”
The Minimum wage.
“I am thoroughly in
favour of the minimum wage and you will be interested to know, and I
am sure you must already be aware of the fact, that the strongest
advocate of the minimum wage is His Holiness the Pope. The unfair
distribution of the wealth which labour, land and capitalism combined
produces from year to year in Great Britain shows the great injustice
done to the first of the greatest of these factors, Labour, for while
Capitalism, including interest and superintendence, walks off with
about £300,000,000
worth of this wealth – while landlordism in agricultural rents, in
ground rents and in mineral royalties obtain some 250,000,000 of this
wealth, the
25,000,000 of wage-earners in Great Britain, without whose labour
none of it could be produced, receive between them only about
one-half of the whole. It is therefore manifestly a question not only
of justice but of morality to see that the principle of the minimum
wage should obtain in order that by this means there shall be
something like a fair distribution of the wealth which these factors
in production bring forth every year.”
The Most Powerful Labour
Organisation.
“The most powerful
organisation in Great Britain is that of the miners. It numbers some
300,000 out of a total number employed of 700,000. They have been
more successful than any other organisation in electing men from
their own ranks to Parliament. The miners of Great Britain had seven
of their members in the last British Parliament. In the matter of
funds they are also among the richest of the Labour unions. I should
say that the miners have increased their wages fully 40 per cent
within the last forty years.
The Great Unemployed Question
and How to Solve It.
“The number of unemployed in Great Britain is
increasing from year to year. This question of the unemployed is
becoming one of the most serious of social problems in the United
Kingdom. Last winter it was reckoned that there were at least a
million and a half of workers out of employment, and were it not that
the various charitable societies of London and a great number of rich
people contributed generously towards the support of those people
there would have been a serious criss. How this problem is to be
dealt with will become the most serious consideration for British
statesmanship. We Irish and British Radicals think there is but one
effective remedy for this serious social evil, and that is to make
the land as accessible as possible to Labour. We have at the present
time in Great Britain and Ireland more land lying idle – that is,
not giving any labour and producing no food – than is comprised in
the Kingdom of Belgium, where over five millions of people manage to
subsist. We think that if the land of Great Britain were nationalised
and inducements held out to workers to obtain a livelihood by
cultivating the soil and by giving them absolute protection against
taxes being put upon their industry in the shape of rent, that the
unemployed question would soon be satisfactorily solved. For the
origin of the unemployed problem is simply this; Land monopoly or
landlordism has been allowed to drive labour from the country into
the towns and cities, whereas a just and common-sense land
administration should work the other way, and tend to invite Labour
to remain on the land so as to bring the largest possible amount of
the soil of the country under the dominion of the plough and the
spade.”
Effects of Competition in
Food Stuffs.
“The competition of America and the Australian
colonies with the production of food supplies in Great Britain and
Ireland has been very beneficial to the labouring masses of the
United Kingdom and has been particularly helpful to us Irish land
reformers. The volume of cheap food which you colonies have been
sending to our markets and the same thing coming from America and
other countries, have cheapened the necessaries of life considerably
for the wage-earners. For instance, when I was a boy in Lancashire,
wheat was selling at 60s. a quarter, which meant, of course, that
flour was correspondingly dear, and was more difficult to obtain by
workers whose wages were then low. Now wheat is bringing no more than
20s. a quarter in the English markets, which means that flour is 300
per cent cheaper than it was a generation ago, and it is a more
general article of diet with the working classes. In the same way the
amount of beef and mutton we are receiving from the Australian
colonies and America has enabled the wage-earners to add animal food
to their daily diet more generally than heretofore. The working men
of London, Dublin, or Glasgow can now buy Australian beef at the rate
of 3d. per Ib. Therefore this foreign competition in food stuffs has
been enormously beneficial to the labouring classes. It has enabled
us Irish land reformers, too, to make successful assaults upon the
institution of landlordism. Having reduced the price of almost all
produce in the old country, it has consequently reduced the value of
the landlord's interest in the soil, and has given a powerful impetus
to the movement which has for its object the obtaining of the land
for the people.”
A Comparison.
“Labour organisation
in Great Britain is not what it ought to be. Out of 25,000,000 of
wage-earners we have less than 1,500,000 organised. Still the power
and prestige and influence of labour organisation with us is much
greater than in America or in any continental country. The Knights of
Labour, to which I belong, was possibly numerically stronger than the
trades union combination of our country; but I regret to say that
internal divisions and jealousies have very much weakened the Knights
of Labour within the past three or four years. On the Continent of
Europe there is, practically speaking, very little effective labour
organisation. In Germany, the Labour movement is merged in the
Social-Democratic movement, which is a powerful political one. What
we know as trades unionism has very little existence in either
Germany or France. I might say that the only effective trades
combination in France and Germany is found amongst the miners.”
Progress of Socialism.
“Socialism
has made considerable progress in England during the last ten years,
and there are various agencies at work for the spread of Socialism
throughout Great Britain. There is the Social Democratic Federation
of London, the Fabian Society (the most influential body of
propagandists), the Independent Labour Party, besides other smaller
bodies. Then we have the great influence exercised in that direction
by Mr. Blatchford (“Nunquam'”), through the Clarion,
which has an enormous circulation throughout England and through his
work “Merrie England,” which has had a phenomenal circulation of
over 1,000,000 copies. In addition to these, we have eminent divines
like the Rev. Stopford Brooke, of London, and Dr. Clifford, who are
at least nominal Socialists, while the poet, William Morris, and the
great painter, Sir Edward W. B. Jones, are likewise Socialists.
Decidedly, Socialism is making headway in England, though I do not
expect to find a single Socialist, with the exception of John Burns,
returned to the new Parliament. This is largely due, in my opinion,
to the unique
policy pursued by Keir Hardie and Hyndman, who have called upon their
followers to support the Tories as against the Radicals and Home
Rulers where a socialist candidate was not in the field. In this way
many true friends of the advanced Labour movement have been defeated,
while, as I have already said, not a single Socialist, except Burns,
will have secured a single seat in the new parliament.”
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